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| Maerten de Vos Moses displaying the Tablets of the Law 1574-75 oil on panel Mauritshuis, The Hague |
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| Camillo Procaccini The Drunkenness of Noah ca. 1590-1600 oil on canvas Hatton Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne |
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| Paolo da San Leocadio St Joachim and St Anne meeting near the Golden Gate ca. 1510-20 tempera and oil on panel Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Pontormo (Jacopo Carrucci) The Visitation 1528-29 oil on panel Pieve di San Michele Arcangelo, Carmignano |
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| Giovanni Francesco Romanelli Return from the Flight into Egypt ca. 1635-40 oil on canvas Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid |
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| Marcello Venusti The Purification of the Temple (detail) after 1550 oil on panel National Gallery, London |
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| Peter Paul Rubens Christ's Charge to Peter ca. 1614 oil on canvas Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin |
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| Giorgio Vasari The Garden of Gethsemane ca. 1570 oil on panel National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo |
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| Giovanni Paolo Rossetti Descent from the Cross (detail) ca. 1560 oil on canvas Chiesa di San Dalmazio, Volterra |
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| Jacopo Tintoretto The Lamentation 1560 oil on canvas Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice |
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| attributed to Bernardo Parentino The Lamentation ca. 1500-1510 oil on panel Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht |
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| Andrea Solario The Lamentation ca. 1509 oil on panel Musée du Louvre |
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| Fermo Guisoni The Deposition ca. 1539-40 oil on canvas Palazzo Ducale, Mantua |
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| workshop of Simon Vouet The Deposition ca. 1635-38 oil on panel Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels |
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| Anonymous Netherlandish Artist The Ascension of Christ ca. 1520 oil on panel Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin |
"It is sufficiently known how great a liberty painters are used to take in the colouring of their habits and of other draperies belonging to their historical pieces. If they are to paint a Roman people, they represent them in different dresses, though it be certain the common people among them were habited very near alike and much after the same colour. In like manner, the Egyptians, Jews, and other ancient nations, as we may well suppose, bore in this particular their respective likeness or resemblance one to another, as at present the Spaniards, Italians, and several other people of Europe. But such a resemblance as this would, in the way of painting, produce a very untoward effect, as may easily be conceived. For this reasons the painter makes no scruple to introduce philosophers, and even apostles, in various colours, after a very extraordinary manner. It is here that the historical truth must of necessity indeed give way to that which we call poetical, as being governed not so much by reality as by probability, or plausible appearance. So that a painter who uses his privilege or prerogative in this respect ought however to do it cautiously and with discretion. And when occasion requires that he should present us his philosophers or apostles thus variously coloured, he must take care at least to mortify his colours, that these plain poor men may not appear in his piece adorned like so many lords or princes of the modern garb."
– Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury, from the Characteristics (this excerpt first published in 1712)